STOCHASTIC COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION (RFID) TAGS BASED ON COALITION FORMATION, SUCH AS FOR TAG-TO-TAG COMMUNICATION

• US 20120229259A1
• Filed: 05/15/2012
• Published: 09/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intermec IP Corporation (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Intermec IP Corporation (Honeywell International Inc.)
• Inventors: Maltseff, Paul A., Winter, Steven, Nikitin, Pavel, Kodukula, Venkata, Erosheva, Elena
• Granted Patent: US 8,488,510 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 340/10.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 17/0029 the arrangement being specially adapted for wireless interrogation of grouped or bundled articles tagged with wireless record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/0723 the record carrier comprising an arrangement for non-contact communication, e.g. wireless communication circuits on transponder cards, non-contact smart cards or RFIDs
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/0728 the arrangement being an optical or sound-based communication interface
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10237 the reader and the record carrier being capable of selectively switching between reader and record carrier appearance, e.g. in near field communication [NFC] devices where the NFC device may function as an RFID reader or as an RFID tag
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/10297 arrangements for handling protocols designed for non-contact record carriers such as RFIDs NFCs, e.g. ISO/IEC 14443 and 18092 cryptographic protocols H04L9/00; network security protocols H04L63/00; real-time communication protocols in data switching networks H04L65/00; network protocols for data switching network services H04L67/00

Abstract

Data carriers (such as RFID tags) are formed into clusters of data carriers. Each cluster has at least one bridge data carrier that can communicate with a bridge data carrier of another cluster, thereby allowing data carriers in each cluster to communicate directly or indirectly with each other using a stochastic communication protocol method. Direct tag-to-tag communication capability is provided between data carriers in each cluster and/or between clusters. The data carriers can backscatter and modulate a carrier wave from a source, thereby using the backscattered and modulated carrier wave to convey data to each other.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

forming coalitions of clusters of distributed data carriers;

for each of said clusters, identifying a bridge data carrier that is capable to link with a bridge data carrier of another of said clusters; and

enabling communication between data carriers of the clusters, at least some of said data carriers including batteryless passive data carriers.